Anyone been on the water?

Mark Evans · Post by **Mark Evans** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 7:45 pm

I have been down to my local rowing club and went on the water for the first time...EVER!!!!.....no pace or anything just being trained on how to do the stroke...It's fantastic...just wondered if anyone else has had experience on the water?

Cheers

Mark

Post by **Thomas W-P** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 8:07 pm

Oh yes! I had a thread on this some time ago. Racing and winning a close race on water is magic. No other sport as far as I can tell (apart from maybe tug of war?) where eight people give their all time and time again for a gain of 2cm each time.

JanetS · Post by **JanetS** » Wed Aug 30, 2006 8:09 pm

I love being on the water!

Glad to hear you've dipped your toe in

I reckon I do better endurance sessions in a single (or even better in an eight - but not much chance of that now

) It's the bit about having to get back to the boathouse rather than being able to put the handle down!

...and there's nothing like being in a good crew going fast....... *happy sigh*

Did I mention I'm obsessed?

Warning - you will be too - sounds like you're well on the way already......

mitchy · Post by **mitchy** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 8:53 am

I rowed in Maidstone (MIRC) for about 5 years and loved it, incredibly frustrating at times but the euphoria after a good outing / race was immense. Stopped when I moved house about 9 years ago but may pick it up again as I've moved back there. The tough part was the amount of training required just to become competitive.

Strangely I do more on the ergo now than I did then and did a 5k PB yesterday - couldn't pull the 349 meters in a minute that I did back then though!

Advice - quick hands at the turn, nothing worse than getting thrown over the nack of your seat as you 'crab'. I cycle through 10 strokes concentrating on this, then quick catches etc. Almost breaks the monotony of a 10k but not quite

.

Mike Channin · Post by **Mike Channin** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 1:45 pm

Rowed at college for two years in the early 90's, which was where I was first introduced to the dreaded 'Erg'.

Nothing is better than gliding down the river in May in glorious sun, with the boat perfectly sat, all 8 of you in perfect harmony. For anyone who hasn't been in an eight, it feels like you have the strength of 8 people, and every time you pull, and you feel the whole boat lift and surge, it is just wonderful.

Of course, when the boat isn't in time, and you keep whacking your hands on the side it isn't so funny.

Only caught a crab once, and fortunately managed to wrestle it back down without getting detached from the boat. Never again. Have known people to be both knocked out cold, and/or thrown out of the boat this way. Scary stuff. Never happens on an erg...

Mike Channin · Post by **Mike Channin** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 1:50 pm

Has got me thinking about my favourite rowing stories now.

Remember one time we were out on the river on a choppy day, fair bit of splashing and spray going on. Could hear one of the blue boats approaching (you can tell them by ear because the timing is so perfect). Turned out to be the ladies lightweights. They'd obviously had a bit of a splashy outing too. Light blue lycra goes pretty transparent when wet. We were presented with the sight of 16 nipples moving in perfect harmony...

I vaguely remember our cox's forlorn cry of "eyes in your own boat" as our rowing disintegrated into an impersonation of a spider having a fit and we lurched off into the bank.

And the ladies lightweight stroke permitted herself a small smirk.

johnglynn · Post by **johnglynn** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 9:17 am

What is a crab (to crab) ?

"eyes in your own boat"

Mike Channin · Post by **Mike Channin** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 10:51 am

'Catching a crab' is when you don't get your blade out of the water at the same time as everyone else, so the spoon gets stuck under the water, which means that suddenly the entire force of the boat moving through the water gets transmitted back up towards you. This is quite a lot of force if the boat is shifting. Basically the oar tries to take your head off, and you either have to fight it back, tap down really hard to get it out, and then try and catch up with the stroke, or you duck and let it go over your head. If it goes over your head, the blade gets stuck down the side of the boat, and the rower behind you has to stop and help retrieve it as you physically can't get the leverage yourself. If you're at bow and you do this, you're pretty stuffed!

If you remember the boat race that had to be restarted a few years back, that was because Oxford had continued to encroach on the Cambridge water, depsite several warnings from the umpire. There was a heavy clash of blades and one of the Cambridge crew crabbed out. You don't tend to see it an awful lot with experienced rowers, but novices all dread the famous catching of the crab.

I think it may be called that because of the way the blade dives under the water, and it kind of looks like you could be scraping crabs off the bottom of the river.

"Eyes in your own boat" is a standard(ish) coxing command to pay attention, but was just SOOO appropriate in the above context

Mike Channin · Post by **Mike Channin** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 11:08 am

Speaking of coxing commands and comments, there can be some real classics, and the great thing about an eight is the cox is speaking into a mic. and amplified, so everyone around can hear what is said.

Remember one morning we were on the outing, heading up the river from the boathouse. The Stern 4 were warming, and the Bow 4 were keeping the boat sat (blades resting on the water). The cox was "Diagonal Dave" (so called because of his tendency not to steer straight as a novice). We were going round the bend under the footbridge, when he called for us to "hold it up" (means stop the boat or we'll hit something), as he's obviously got his line wrong and we weren't going to make the bend. Then he issued the immortal line:

"Sorry we didn't make the bend guys, guess it was just the weight of your fat cox".

Needless to say, we found this rather funny. A chap riding his bike over the footbridge actually lost control and fell off he was laughing so much.

Dave, of course, didn't realise the humour, and kept saying "What? What have I said?" until the stroke managed to regain enough breath and stop laughing long enough to explain.

Priceless.

JanetS · Post by **JanetS** » Fri Sep 01, 2006 2:21 pm

Rita · Post by **Rita** » Sun Sep 10, 2006 10:43 pm

I got a taste of rowing on the water last Monday. The rowing club in Indianapolis (~ 60 min away) had an open house/bbq/informal clinic. In the morning there were informal races among the club members, singles and 8's. Then in the afternoon they gave a lesson to people wanting to learn how to row. After teaching us the basics of how to move the oars and keep the scull from flipping, we got to row around the reservior.

I'm happy to say that I didn't flip the scull and go for a swim! For every 20 "strokes" 1 was actually good and moved the scull. My right arm seems to be stronger (more co-ordinated?) than my left and because my strokes weren't "even" I tended to row in a circle. It was a lot of fun, but definitely different from erging. However, when I erg now, I pay much more attention to my leg drive.

Classes for the fall are full, but I will sign up for the spring "Learn to row" classes.

Mike Channin · Post by **Mike Channin** » Wed Sep 13, 2006 1:06 am

Ok, time for another 'tale from the Cam'. The tale of the rowing Santas...

In my third year at college, in the first term (Michaelmas, October to December and therefore cold and miserable on the river) we thought it would be an interesting idea to form a gentlemans' (i.e. NOT serious) eight so that a few of us stroke-siders could have a go at rowing on the 'wrong' side. We managed to scramble together a crew, and had great fun being hopeless at rowing badly. (For anyone who hasn't rowed on the water, rowing the wrong side is like trying to eat with your knife and fork crossed over, until you get used to it, which in our case was going to take longer than one term!) Myself and Yan (the two stroke siders on bow side) were relegated to Bow and 3 (the back of the boat) where our tendency to backsplash would soak less of the rest of the crew.

Towards the end of the term, the boat club captain approached us and asked us if we'd like to be entered for the Senior Fairbairns, a Head Race down most of the length of the Cam, for senior crews only. We said, yes, what the hell, as we've rowed all term we may as well have a laugh in the race. He went away with an evil grin.

A few days later we discovered that as the proper seniors had been rowing in Fours for the term, we were the ONLY senior eight being entered by the college. And the previous year the senior eight had been serious and good and had finished 7th, so we'd be starting 7th overall (from 40+ VERY serious boats). Suddenly, our entry started to look like not such a great idea...

So we had to come up with a plan to ensure that no-one thought we were a serious VIII. Being Michaelmas term, and in the lead up to xmas, we decided to row as 8 x Santa Claus (complete with santa hats) plus another Santa as cox. We decked the boat end to end in tinsel (an awful lot of it is needed to cover a full VIII and all the riggers) and even had a mini christmas tree installed in the bows. Needless to say, everyone on the bank thought this was pretty amusing, and we rowed down to the start to the repeated calls of 'Ho ho ho, Churchill!'

Was quite an experience to line up for the start, looking back at two of the following boats and noting the blues rowers in them from the previous year's Boat Race, while all dressed as Santas.

The boat behind us was somewhat arrogant about their chances of catching us and 'politely' asked us to make sure we pulled over to let them past when they caught us. (Can't remember which college this was - think it was Jesus, but forgive me if I have this wrong).

So we pulled up to the start, and did our 'special' xmas start to the call of "Ho, ho, ho" from the cox, rather than the more conventional "1, 2, 3..."

Again, much merriment from the banks.

The arrogant boat behind gave us a pretty big head start (probably about 2 minutes rather than the conventional 30 seconds) before setting off in pursuit.

We had a blinding row, and our cox Andy did a fabulous job of encouraging us to row our socks (and santa hats) off. I will never forget him calling for the bow side corner and then saying "I can't believe it - we're accelerating round the corner!!" as us stand-in bow siders gave it the big heave.

Towards the end of the race, Arrogant VIII was bearing down on us, so the cox called for a last push, and you should have seen their faces as the Santa boat rose up in the water and surged away from them to ensure they didn't catch us. Hehehe.

Surprisingly, we didn't come last in the race, so we were well pleased with our result, and we certainly gave the spectators some amusement. I think we even made Varsity that week (university newspaper).

Last funny moment for me came in the row back down to the boathouse. We'd all shuffled round in the boat and I'd ended up back on stroke side again. All was great for about 5 strokes until I sneaked a look out to check on my blade height (as you tend to have to do when rowing on the wrong side, even though you're not supposed to). AND THERE WAS NO BLADE!!!! Took me best part of the stroke to work out I was back on stroke side, and the blade was on the OTHER side of the boat. (And I know how stupid this sounds, but it is easier to do than you might think, and the sheer panc when you discover you've 'lost' your oar is amazing!)

Think I may still have a photo of the xmas boat somewhere, and will post it up if I can find it...

(So, for anyone on the banks during Senior Fairbairns 1992, no, you didn't imagine it, you really did see a boat full of santas, and that's what it was all about)

JanetS · Post by **JanetS** » Sun Sep 17, 2006 12:56 pm

Mike Channin wrote: (So, for anyone on the banks during Senior Fairbairns 1992, no, you didn't imagine it, you really did see a boat full of santas, and that's what it was all about)

I have to get in touch with my crew of that year to see who remembers it....

Meanwhile....
The bad new is that the painters have descended on my household - for which the preparation involved hubby dumping all moveable objects into the 'spare' bedroom - I can't get to the ergo - hence no meters posted for a while.

The good news is that I have managed to get back on the water

Sufficient coaches about yesterday for me to join the J15s out for a single scull (only second time in at least 2yrs & probably much more!) Good 1hr outing.
If there's enough coaches on Tuesday I get to head race with the kiddies.... & then maybe to Cambridge Small Boats Head on 7th Oct (if we take a bunch up there) for my first ever race in a single - Women's Veteran Novice

(I think I'll take spare kit - just in case........

)

Mike Channin · Post by **Mike Channin** » Sun Nov 19, 2006 11:35 am

Well, the OTW stuff is currently destroying my hands - they're starting to look like something out of a horror movie now. Now how come I can do 2.5 million meters in 6 months and hardly suffer, but the second I start water rowing, my hands disintegrate?? (some of it is down to having wet hands, and some must be down to that old wooden blade handle...)

big dave k · Post by **big dave k** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 3:42 am

did about 25k on the water this morning, around the same yesterday, and another 10 during the week. the result is my hands are absolutely ripped to shreds. have counted 6 blisters just on my right palm!

althought i dont want to accept it, i think they're down to technique issues. changing hand positions on the handle mid-piece seems to be the main culprit. this is never a problem on the erg because you dont have a great bloody oar attached to the handle that tends to move about and require movements of the hands to sort it out. can do an hour on the erg with no blisters, but hands tend to blister after about 10 minutes on the water.

JanetS · Post by **JanetS** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 7:47 am

big dave k wrote:did about 25k on the water this morning, around the same yesterday, and another 10 during the week. the result is my hands are absolutely ripped to shreds. have counted 6 blisters just on my right palm!

althought i dont want to accept it, i think they're down to technique issues. changing hand positions on the handle mid-piece seems to be the main culprit. this is never a problem on the erg because you dont have a great bloody oar attached to the handle that tends to move about and require movements of the hands to sort it out. can do an hour on the erg with no blisters, but hands tend to blister after about 10 minutes on the water.

It's also the tighter grip you tend to have on the water, especially if the balance is off - it's easy to have a loose 'hook' on the erg - it's possible in a boat (outside 'hook', inside loose 'rolling' grip - tad different for for sculling) - but it's bloody difficult!

Was talking to one of our coaches who diagnosed that as the source of my collection.......

MaxDev · Post by **MaxDev** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 11:49 pm

Having read (and chuckled a lot) at Mike's stories from the Cam, I thought I'd relate one that I was reminded of by his bit about cox's commands that happened to me at university, though this could equally go in the "oops" thread.

I was at "the other place" as Mike might know it (Oxford to everyone else), from 94 to 98, but didn't really do much in the way of rowing. Was just about good enough for my college 2nd VIII crew for Torpids (Hilary term VIIIs races) in my second year, then had to pull out of the races a few days before as a strenuous set of training sessions caused my knee to swell up from a ligament injury I'd done the previous year).

Anyway, enough preamble, here's a "Tale from the Isis"...

This one happened at Summer VIIIs in my third year. I'd been asked to form part of the college 3rd VIII for that summer. Other than the 1st and 2nd VIIIs, the remaining crews were "beer VIIIs". For those that didn't row at a university, that's where some (non-novice generally) rowers get together, do very little training, just about manage to qualify for the main races and use the whole thing as an excuse for dressing-up amusingly (a la Mike's Santas, I've seen whole crews of Vikings complete with horned helmets, fake beards and plastic breastplates and axes), having fun on the water and drinking lots of Pimms/beer/whatever else they like in large quantities.

We (Brasenose III) had qualified quite high up thanks to getting in some ringers for the qualifying race, though we were near the bottom of the particular division we were going to be rowing in, so we started miles down river almost at the weir, way below Donnington Bridge, which means a much longer race

We only had a wooden VIII as well, as the college only had three fibreglass boats at the time, and they were reserved for the mens 1st and 2nd VIIIs and the womens 1st VIII. Behind us was a college 2nd crew... I don't recall exactly who - might have been Jesus, but they were fast, and they had a fibreglass boat AND cleavers (BIG shovel-like blades that had only been introduced a few years previously) compared to our normal blades, so we were hopelessly outclassed and knew we were going to get bumped very early.

There was no way we could row over... our only hope was to try and bump the crew ahead of us before we could be caught by those following. (For those that don't understand how bumps races work - once a bump takes place, the bumper and bumpee take no further part in the race and exchange positions for the next days race, while the crew behind then has to try and catch the crew that started three places in front, to get an "overbump").

The race started... we got off to a flier on the start, and were rapidly making ground on the crew ahead (though Jesus were catching us fast as well), and everyone was putting in 110%...

Half a minute passes... we've almost caught the boat in front... we've got overlap! But Jesus are still coming up fast. Our cox is totally focussed on the boat in front, trying to steer us to make the bump, but he's forgotten about the fact that the river is quite narrow at this point, and there's a quite sharp turn to be made.

However, we're on the outside of the turn, and the momentum of the boat is too great, we go charging towards the bank at full power, and go over a submerged log that puts a large hole in the bottom of the boat down near the stern (just behind the cox's seat).

Water starts pouring in. Jesus bump us, but we hardly even notice as within a matter of seconds the boat is half-full of water and quite substantially down at the stern. It was then, after a few moments of silent contemplation, that our cox, Adrian, issued his immortal command:

"Abandon ship!"

If it hadn't been such a serious moment, I think I'd have broken down with hysterical laughter, but as it was everyone just (fairly)calmly unshipped their blades, and leaving the boat, which was by now almost under the water, we swam/waded through the mud to the bank and hauled ourselves ashore.

I don't even remember what happened for the rest of the races (there are four days to the event). We found another boat to use in any case (although the sunk one was salvaged and repaired later). I think we may have been bumped once more and rowed over twice. However, whenever you talked to anyone from one of the other colleges during the rest of Eights, it was always... "What crew? Brasenose III. Aren't you the guys who holed your eight and sank?"

Mike Channin · Post by **Mike Channin** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 12:09 am

Ah the 'bumps' - brings back many, many rowing memories - some good, some not so good.

For anyone who ever has the chance, go see the bumps. They are an amazing spectacle and pretty much unique. The bumps start is a truly terrifying experience. Even now, standing up at the start and listening to the countdown can put my pulse right up...

As the point of the bumps is to _physically_ hit the boat in front, you do tend to get a lot a damage going on. The Cam is quite a lot narrower than the Isis, and is literally only just 2 boats wide in a lot of places. The start of the course features 3 sharp bends in succession, stroke side, the infamous bow side grassy 120 degree bend, and then a final stroke side before straightening out. Most of the crashes happen on the bends! This is commonly known as 'carnage'

My grandfather got a great big of carnage on video from when I was rowing (not our division though). Two boats are coming through Grassy with the back boat already on overlap. The cox of the leading boat steers wide in desperation and gets lucky. His crew clip their oars on the bank but just keep going. The cox behind steers across the river for the bump, somehow misses and the rear boat hits the bank with an impressive 'crack' and proceeds to skew right across the river and sink, complete with crew still standing in it frantically waving their arms. Next three boats come round the corner at full racing speed, and only the thousands of people on the bank yelling give them enough warning to get stopped before a real pile up. Will try to find the tape and get it on the web somewhere...

MaxDev · Post by **MaxDev** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 12:21 am

Sinking at Oxford is much rarer, probably as Mike says due to the Isis being generally much wider than the Cam. Hence the increased embarrassment factor of managing to sink an eight on the Isis.

Mike Channin · Post by **Mike Channin** » Tue Nov 21, 2006 12:27 am

But all this talk of the bumps reminds me of possibly my favourite rowing story.

We too had a 'beer' boat for the May Bumps 1992, although in Cambridge they were euphemistically known as 'Gentlemen's Boats' (dunno what the female equivalent would have been).

We were rowing as Churchill IV on the grounds that we hadn't done much training and were self coached by friends rather than being an 'official' college boat. That said, we were a bunch of thugs and were actually pretty good as a crew despite being neither particularly big or talented.

It was the third day of the bumps and we were rowing up near the head of the division. We were clearly better than the boat in front and not under much pressure from the boat behind, and were closing rapidly on the way into Grassy. It was a lovely sunny day and the river banks were absolutely packed with spectators with hardly any space to stand even. We closed in on the boat ahead and got the bump as we came into the middle of the corner. Having bumped we then had to clear the river, so the cox steered us across to the outside and we glided up to the bank, scattering spectators left and right as the blades went up onto the bank. As luck would have it, 5's blade behind me demolished a picnic being had by a couple of little old ladies as we pulled up, sandwiches and stuff going everywhere...

Only problem was, the guy behind me at 5, Julian, didn't realise that we'd got the bump and thought we'd crashed instead. Now Julian was (and still is) a no nonsense straight-talking engineer with a rare ability to turn the air blue. Thinking we'd crashed, and were about to get bumped instead, Julian got a little bit _agitated_. He proceeded to start frantically trying to push off, basically using his oar to violently mash the remains of the little old ladies' picnic into the bank, while yelling at the top of his voice "For F***s sake, push us off!!!" repeatedly, at the top of his voice. It took us about 15 seconds to calm him down enough to realise that it was ok - meanwhile the poor little old ladies were going into shock. Julian finally calmed down and then said "so we've already bumped then? Why the F*** didn't anyone say???".

He then turned to the little old ladies, and said in his best polite voice "Afternoon, ladies. Having a nice day?". Priceless...

The little old ladies made a quick recovery and even took part in going and getting some greenery from the nearby bushes to decorate the boat (don't ask me why this is used as a sign of having bumped - it is bl**dy uncomfortable having to row back with part of a tree sticking out of your vest...)

Well, at least they had a memorable day. (I think we even ate some of the less mashed up sandwiches on the way back.)